Taking your Pinterest, Etsy, and Instructable ideas and giving you the low down on the cost, the time, and the skills it takes to make these at home!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Phone Book (or Newspaper) Wreath

When I saw this post by MormonMommyBlog, I figured I could knock it out in a couple hours and have a nice, eco-friendly, homemade recycled wreath. Let me tell you right now: get a friend, a child, a spouse, someone to help you or you will spend a ridiculous amount of time on it, which is something the original post doesn't tell you. So here's what you'll need:
1. A large piece of cardboard
2. Scissors
3. A marker/pen
4. A hot glue gun and 3-4 sticks of glue
5. A ruler
6. Something to trace your circles (I used a small bowl but you could use a coffee lid)
7. At least 1 phone book (I used 2)
8. A ribbon or something to hang the wreath

First, cut out the size of your wreath. Keep in mind, the bigger the square, the longer it'll take to cover! I tried to eyeball how big they made theirs so I could make mine the same and guessed it was about 14"x15".

Next, trace your circles onto the pages of your phone book. I started out using 8 pages but halfway through the project, I used 4 pages per circle and couldn't tell any difference in size. Batman wanted to help trace circles but he ended up playing in the leftover pages all over the floor instead.

Cut a spiral into the circle, roll it up tight, and slightly release to make rosettes. I recommend gluing the end of the spiral in.

Glue down your rosettes to the cardboard and note that they all don't have to look the same. In fact, if they're different sizes, the variation makes it look unique!

The tracing, cutting, rolling, and gluing takes the longest so if you have a second pair of hands, it would help! Also, your fingers will be covered in ink and hot glue by the time you're done.

Add a ribbon to hang and you're all done!

TOTAL COSTS: Free!
The cardboard was from IKEA packaging, the phone books we receive annually, and everything else was on hand.

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 8 hours
Just to cover the bottom, it took 2 hours, 48 minutes.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
It wasn't so much difficult as it was time consuming. You have to be careful not to burn yourself with the hot glue but other than that, it's a piece 'o cake!

UPDATE: It has been a month and a half since I wrote this post and I wanted to post an update. Since having the wreath up, some of the spirals came undone. I live in LA so my door is prone to the occasional Santa Ana wind gust, but I wanted to give you fair warning the same thing might happen to yours!